Saturday, December 20, 2008

Speak my language

I'm from Seria.. or some may lump Sg. Liang, Lumut, Labi all into one general place, "KB". Well, a bit salah lor... I don't mind people saying, "Oh, you're from Seria. Belait people" and not "Oh, from Seria, KB lang". Sorry, but very wrong leh.

KB, Seria, Lumut, Sg. Liang and Labi all belong to the same district, and that's BELAIT.

Anyhoos~ for the past weeks in the tuition class, my classmates and I shared a lot of crazy jokes and I guess the funniest would be the part we compared KB Mandarin and BSB Mandarin. Really laughed till pa-lang-ting.

(Note: Like everyone else, I'll just use "KB Mandarin" instead of "Belait Mandarin" and blog using "KB" slang)

For example:

Take photo 
Proper Mandarin - 拍照 (Pai Zhao) : 你可以过来和我一起拍照吗?
KB Slang - 影相 (Ying Xiang) : Eh, 你帮我过来影相可以吗?
(Translated from Cantonese dialect)


Driving

Proper Mandarin - 驾驶 / 开车 : 十八岁就可以考驾驶执照了.
KB Slang - "Su" : Wah...十八岁可以 "su" 车 liao wor
(I think the word "Su" is from Hakka dialect)

- We have a tendency to pronounce 了 as the "了" in "了解"
  instead of saying it as "le" we say "liao"



Corner

Proper Mandarin - 角落 : 你要找的盒子就在那角落.
KB Slang - "Ko-lok-头" :  Neh, 那个盒子不是在 "ko-lok-头" meh!
(Err... this is a tricky one. I think its from Hakka because they say "角头" as corner in their dialect. Correct me if I'm wrong)


Squat

Proper Mandarin - 蹲
KB Slang - "猫" (I don't know the proper word for that, but it just have the same syllable)

(From Cantonese, they say 蹲 as "猫低")


Piece

Proper Mandarin - 块 : 一块蛋糕
KB Slang - "搞" : 一搞kek


Spoon

Proper Mandarin - 匙, 汤匙
KB Slang - 瓷钢 (pronounce 斤 in Cantonese please then you'll get the 钢 word)




Oh ya, and I also don't know where those slang like "Giok", "kick", "濃", "hen" come from! It just somehow become a trend for us to say it.

Everyone says we have a weird accent. Like 蚂蚁, we pronounce as Ma3 Yi4 and not Ma1 Yi1.
Plus those weird slang, I tell you, we KB/Seria people punya Mandarin 一流 one!

Hah! I dare you you to impersonate us.
Fail till your pants drop!
Hahahahahahaaaa.

(If any of you can contribute some extra.. I'm trying to compile, out of boredom)

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

hahhaha.. here again.. lu.. hak hak hak.. Nonnie.. hey hey.. Nikki.. i know your coming here soon.. and looking at that previous post comment from the last post. Yes, go there now.

Hakhakhak.. in the new generation, means when u have kids, what do you think then new slang would be lu?

how bout go toilet lei? Nonnie.. haahaha.. anyways.. good luck at ur studies.. time passes too fast.. i am getting old too fast.. so many of my friends are gettiing married.. oh my.. out of topic.. hahahahahaha..

Take care Nonnie..

YEA, I AM HERE FIRST..

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean. Although I don't understand Mandarin, my husband always tell me that he can tell if a person is from Seria the moment they speak Mandarin - no matter what corner of the world they are at.

Isn't it fun to have a distinctive slang?

Nonnie King said...

Luuee : Now Iwan don't comment then become you liao. Hahhaa. Bah, when are you getting married?

Jewelle : Yes! And I'm proud of it!

Anonymous said...

hahaahaa.. why lei? Iwan din come to comment le..? haahahaha.. lolx.. grok.. I getting married.. ar.. still got long time la... haahaha.. lolx .. Merry Christmas..

Nonnie King said...

A lor.. I long time don't see Iwan online liao also. Wonder if he's going good.

Merry Xmas to you too.

Anonymous said...

haahahaha.. That Iwan.. hai.. lolx.. enjoy a nice day Nonnie.. hiakx.. hiakx..

Drifting Cloud said...

hahaha... u reminded me of how difficult it was to speak proper/standard mandarin when I was back in China...

And I still remember you said I don't speak like KB ppl when we met up last time...

nikki.szeli said...

luuee: went there liao. haha!

Nonnie .. SO TRUE! hahahaha! not only the slang but also the accent.

take photo, i usually say 'zhao xiang' XD

my friend laughed at me when I say 'ten' ==" I said 'shek' dian .. should be 'shi' dian =="

now i wonder where did all those kiok, nung and etc come from .. haha!

Anonymous said...

hahahahahhaha.. Hey hey.. Nonnie.. and Nikki.. hiakz..

Anonymous said...

Anymore? Makes a very good refresher course!! *tsk tsk*

Anonymous said...

Hi Nonnie
After Googling "slang in Brunei" I followed Chris Chong's link to here "Speak my language".

I was born and raised in kb. I moved to Canada in my teen. After finished primary 6 in Chung Hua, our natural route was to get demoted to English school. In a way, we had the best of both worlds. Having had basic Chinese education but mostly English education for the larger part of our life gave us this strength in languages naturally. Despite, I must admit, I don't have enough language skills to do public speaking in Mandarin, or in any other languages for that matter.

But I still want to share some knowledge I ahve from your exmaples you listed.

了 "le" we say "liao"

This "liao" is likely from Hokkien as we say "Bo liao" 没了。

Corner - 角落
Cantonese - 角落头 gog-log-tao.

Squat- 蹲
Cantonese- 卯低mao dai

Piece - 块
Cantonese - 旧 Gao

Spoon - 匙, 汤匙
Cantonese - 匙羹chi gang

So much for now. I am also trying to re-learn my KB Mandarin which I regards as a unique form of Mandarin.

Language is a regional thing. China based their Mandarin standard to Beijing, but each region speak their version of Mandarin. Try listen to a local from 苏州 speaks Mandarin, habis pingsan kepala. Taiwan is also trying to base their Mandarin to Beijing, sama jua they speak Mandarin with a Hokkien accent.

That said, everyone (well, most) can understand each other by speaking Mandarin.

Lester

Anonymous said...

Hi Nonnie
After Googling "slang in Brunei" I followed Chris Chong's link to here "Speak my language".

I was born and raised in kb. I moved to Canada in my teen. After finished primary 6 in Chung Hua, our natural route was to get demoted to English school. In a way, we had the best of both worlds. Having had basic Chinese education but mostly English education for the larger part of our life gave us this strength in languages naturally. Despite, I must admit, I don't have enough language skills to do public speaking in Mandarin, or in any other languages for that matter.

But I still want to share some knowledge I ahve from your exmaples you listed.

了 "le" we say "liao"

This "liao" is likely from Hokkien as we say "Bo liao" 没了。

Corner - 角落
Cantonese - 角落头 gog-log-tao.

Squat- 蹲
Cantonese- 卯低mao dai

Piece - 块
Cantonese - 旧 Gao

Spoon - 匙, 汤匙
Cantonese - 匙羹chi gang

So much for now. I am also trying to re-learn my KB Mandarin which I regards as a unique form of Mandarin.

Language is a regional thing. China based their Mandarin standard to Beijing, but each region speak their version of Mandarin. Try listen to a local from 苏州 speaks Mandarin, habis pingsan kepala. Taiwan is also trying to base their Mandarin to Beijing, sama jua they speak Mandarin with a Hokkien accent.

That said, everyone (well, most) can understand each other by speaking Mandarin.

Lester

Chris Chong said...

Hi Lester,

Just my personal thinking, you said KB Slang "Liao" it's come from Hokkien, I would not agree with that. I guess, it's come from "Hakka" - "Sit Bao Liao" (I had eaten already).

Yea, as i said KB Slang are usually influence by Cantonese and Hakka as well. If you speak a standard mandarin and don't understand what KBians sentence, try to translate to Cantonese and Hakka, you will get what they mean.

Anonymous said...

Dido Chris
Yes, Hakka plays an influencial part of the development of KB Mandarin. So the liao(了), is from the same source, 汉语。

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